"But are there people like that?" she said, and his heart sank. "I mean, aren't people usually sadistic towards the opposite sex?"
His heart lifted again at once. "Go on."
"These were men whipping a man. If they'd been women, I could… No, I'm talking nonsense."
"I'm sure you're not. Do go on." We're getting somewhere at last, he told himself. But I must be careful not to show I'm excited. "You said that if they had been women, you could… You could what?"
"Oh, nothing. Nothing at all."
He drew a breath. "Were you going to say that you could understand it?"
She glanced at him sharply. I must be very careful, she told herself. If only I could be sure that you are a masochist it would be very different. I think you are. You've given so many signs… but perhaps that's only your manner. And I don't want to lose this job.
"Well," she said, "perhaps it would be easier to understand." She watched closely to see his reaction to this remark.
His nerves gave a jump, but he covered it by putting his glass quickly to his lips. "That's most interesting," he said. "Would you tell me why it would be easier?"
"Why do you ask:
"Oh, no special reason," he said airily. "It's an interesting point of view, that's all."
Is it? she thought. I wonder how you'd take it if I really opened my mouth. If you are a masochist as I think, you'd grovel at my feet. But if I'm wrong-oh dear, oh dear, I'd be out of the house in an instant. And this is the best job I've ever had.
"Have you ever read anything of abnormal psychology?" he asked suddenly. "Havelock Ellis, Hirschfeld, and so on?"
"No."
"They're quite interesting about this sort of thing."
"Floggings?"
"Yes."
She hesitated. "I've read some of Sade and the letters of Sacher-Masoch." She said it and regretted it. She was going a good deal too far.
Oh, he thought happily, you have, have you! Now we're really getting somewhere. "Yes," he said, to give her as much as she had given him, "so have I." And to give her a little more, he added, "And I found them disturbingly interesting."
"Disturbingly?"
"Yes, rather." He thought he had better not elaborate any more on that point yet.
She looked at him with quickened interest. Every word he was now saying was almost an open admission. But she forced herself to go on being careful. She waited expectantly for his next remark. AВe whole conversation was becoming quite exciting.
Shall I, he asked himself-shall I come right out into the open? You must be a sadist. Would you, could you, have read Sade and Sacher-Masoch otherwise? Yes, I suppose you could… But would y ou want to take the trousers off a sixteen- year-old boy if you weren't at least something of a sadist? And would you travel around from job to job with cane and a birch in your bags if you weren't? Shall I plunge? Yes, I will. To hell with it! I've got to know, one way or another.
"Do tell me something," he began, and stopped.
"Yes?" she said, quickly.
He got to his feet. "Let's have another sherry." He took the glass from her hand and went to the side-table again.
I think, she said to herself, that you were on the point of committing yourself then. I wonder what stopped you?
He handed her her refilled glass.
There was a silence.
She sipped her sherry and then said: "You asked me a moment ago to tell you something."
"Yes."
"What was it?"
He frowned at his glass. "You use a cane and a birch on my children, don't you?"
"Yes.",
"Never a whip?"
"Of course not."
"No, of course not." Why the devil had he had to say that? It threw the thing out of balance. She would be on the defensive now. He must repair it somehow.
He forced a smile. "It might do Hans a world of good."
"A whip?"
"Yes."
"Oh no! Poor little Hans!"
Damn, he said to himself, damn and blast! That's made it worse. What shall I say now? This hedging is stupid. Let me say what I want and to hell with it.
"I wish, she said to herself, that you'd have some courage and say what you want to say. This is rather too nerve- racking. Have I dropped the ball now? Should I have agreed that a whip would do Hans a world of good? It wouldn't really. Poor little Hans! A whip might do you a world of good, and I'd love to take one to you, you great big handsome man. But how is a girl to know whether you're a masochist or just a fellow-sadist? There's no doubt now that you are one or the other. But which, for God's sake? My job depends on my knowing that.
"Yes," he said, "poor little Hans. A whip might be too much for him at his age." He suddenly looked at her and said, slowly and deliberately: "But there's something clean and almost poetic about a whip, isn't there?"
Nearer and nearer we go, she thought. But that could have been said equally by a sadist and a masochist. Which, for the love of God, are you? She said: "I agree with you. Very clean and very, very poetic."
"I know what a cane looks like, of course," he said, realising that at last he was plunging, "but I don't know what a birch looks like. Would you please show me the one you use?"
She rose from her chair at once. "Of course. I'll go and get it."
'"I'm sorry to be a trouble," he said lamely.
She gave him a dazzling smile. "It's no trouble at all." She almost ran out of the room.
As the door closed behind her, he drank his glass in a gulp. He went to the side-table and poured himself a large whisky. His heart was racing fast, his penis was very stiff. He pressed it against the corner of the side-table. What, he asked himself shall I say when she comes hack with the birch? How shall I go on? But I must go on. I'll never again be so close to finding out. And if she is sadist, what heaven it will be! A sadist of my own in my own household. I shan't have to wait for the rare visits of Marlene Reitter, and I shan't have to go off to London every few weeks to find a flagellating prostitute.
Margarete came back into the room.
She had a cane and a birch in one hand. She shut the door with the other. She turned slowly to him, with a curious look in her eyes. She stood at the door, motionlessly, staring at him.
He threw the last vestige of caution to the winds. "Are you a sadist?"
"Are you a masochist?" she answered quietly.
"Yes." It simply had to be said. But he held his breath all the same.
"Good. I thought you were. And yes, I am a sadist."
He let out his breath. "Thank God. I thought you were, but I could never be sure."
"I've been certain-without being really certain-that you're a masochist." She came towards him, holding out the birch. "You wanted to see what this looks like."
He took it in his hands. It was made of a dozen or so strips of heavy pliable plastic. "I always thought a birch was made of willow branches.
"They get dry and break."
"I see."
She held out the cane. "And this is Peter."
"Peter?"
"Peter the punisher. My favourite."
He took it in his hands. It was a slender cane nearly a metre in length. He swished it experimentally through the air, wondering what to say.
She said it for him. "Which shall I use first?" His penis gave a great throb and became even harder.
"On me?"
"Yes."
"Now?"
"Yes."
"What about the servants?"
"We can go to your bedroom."
"We can, indeed."
"So which shall I use first?"
"Are you going to use them both?"
"Yes."
He looked again at the birch, and then at the cane. "Which gives more pain?"
"I don't know. I've never been thrashed with either of them."
He laughed nervously. "You must know. How do the children react to them?"
"They seem to be more afraid of the birch, but I never know whether they're pretending or not."